I last donated to VFR in 2006 or 2007, the last time I was gainfully employed. I continued reading VFR daily for the next four years, while in medical school, though as a full-time student I did not feel I could donate. I must have been preoccupied during the previous fundraiser, but now, halfway through my second year of residency, a.k.a. finally having an income again, I feel I am able to donate.

One of the main topics on which you’ve been posting lately is near and dear to me professionally, as I am a resident in the field of psychiatry. Suffice it to say that I’m one of the few people I encounter in my professional life who really think the old system of state hospitals, with their vastly greater number of long-term-committed patients than what we see today, was a good idea. It should come as no surprise that liberals blame deinstitutionalization, not on the liberal belief in equal freedom and individual autonomy as the highest principles, but on those mean old money-grubbing conservatives and their budget-cutting, social-services-slashing ways. It’s a perfect illustration of one of the variations of Auster’s First Law you’ve no doubt stated somewhere: the more liberal our society becomes, the more its problems caused by liberalism are blamed on society’s remaining conservatism. [LA replies: That’s a GREAT variation on Auster’s First Law. It’s so good, and really distinctive, that maybe it should be called Jacob M.’s First Law.]

It should also come as no surprise that liberals make an unprincipled exception and dimly admit that the old state hospital system would have prevented this sort of thing, but they can’t quite bring themselves to advocate a return to such a system. Look at that“I am Adam Lanza’s Mother” article. She goes on and on about how horrible it is to try to raise such a child, but in the end she doesn’t really propose any solutions. She seems to wish it were easier to hospitalize her son, but in the end she can bring herself to call only for a “meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health.” (What is it with liberals and their proposing “conversations” as solutions to concrete, real-world problems?) A few days ago I pointed out, on an online discussion forum, that when our society practiced mass long-term hospitalization of psychotic individuals, this sort of thing didn’t happen, and got essentialy the “back of the bus” response.

I don’t know what the solution to all this is. Medicine, like every other institution in the modern west, is fatally infested with liberalism. I donated to VFR because I’d prefer to be part of the remnant. Prayers and well-wishes to you for good health, a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.

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Matthew H. writes:

Jacob M.”s observation (it is worthy to be called a law) is very helpful in delineating the paradoxical quality of left-think:

The more liberal our society becomes, the more its problems caused by liberalism are blamed on society’s remaining conservatism.

Later he asks:

What is it with liberals and their proposing “conversations” as solutions to concrete, real-world problems?

The answer is that liberals (leftists) don’t want solutions. Their use of the word “conversation” is a euphemism for what they really want which is for all of society to resemble a hotly-contested labor strike. It is to be marked by sweaty and intractable negotiations, angry outbursts, intimidation and mob violence, whether actual or implicit.

Tacitus said the Romans made a desert and called it peace. The modern left creates pandemonium and calls it democracy.